The countdown is ticking away, and Ben Folds Five are preparing to come off of their 13-year hiatus with the release of The Sound of the Life of the Mind on September 18th (their first album since 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner).  The unmastered track “Do It Anyway” has been floating around the internet for a few months as the band has been furiously writing, recording, and rehearsing… and now Spin.com has the exclusive offering of the officially-released track “Erase Me”.

Sounding like a jazzy soundtrack to a Tim Burton movie, “Erase Me” is full of quirkiness, fuzz bass, heavy thumping drums, crazy backing vocals, and even a crazy piano solo near the end. It’s a tad long to be a real “single”, but it certainly squashed any preconceived notions that the new Ben Folds Five would sound like a Ben Folds solo clone. Welcome back!

Head over to Spin.com to read their release notes and hear the new track.